Ancient Roman sports were quite unlike those of ancient Greece where the cult
of the body and individualism brought them to develop a number of athletics
sports such as we still practice today. The ancient Romans were rather more
pragmatic and the limited number of sports they practiced were in fact generally
practiced by slaves or liberti althought there were periods where even the
nobility might have a go at being a gladiator as the rewards were high.

The word "sport" in latin had individual translations and synonyms according
to the type of activity involved such as "ludus" (game), "certamen"
or "inis" (contest, race), "corpore exercitatio" for exercise or "delectamentum"
for diversion. Someone who practiced a variety of sports would "corpus variis
certaminibus exercere".

The sports of athletics including throwing javelins, discus, boxing and so on
were obviously well known but cannot be said to have been major passions of the
Roman people.

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